


mother

by galaxiaxies



Category: Oxygen Not Included (Video Game)
Genre: Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxiaxies/pseuds/galaxiaxies
Summary: You work in your colony and you are happy.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	mother

You wake up to the colony's alarm going off, and you get out of bed and stretch, eager to work. It's fun working, you think. You're happy to be doing it. Everyone's glad to be doing their duties, surely this is the real meaning to life, right? To be able to work for the benefit of all of your friends?

Is this the only colony? Maybe you're the only one. Maybe there are other colonies out there, on other asteroids, maybe they're doing even better than you are. Not that you can even really imagine anything better than this. It makes you feel small. How much else is there? Sometimes you've found things that weren't made by the colony. Was there something before you? Things like this hurt your head.

You ask one of your friends about that during breakfast, but they shrug and say they don't know. Others would talk if there were other asteroids, right? It's too hard to think about these types of things, it's a lot easier to think about work. You like thinking about work even. It's time for work.

On the way to your next priority, you pass by the printing pod. You woke up knowing that it's thousands of cycles old; compared to the handful of tens of cycles you've been alive, it's ancient. But you notice something, something different. The printing pod still shines, it's still working. It prints new duplicants periodically, sometimes it even prints materials the colony needs.

Something's changed though. It feels like the way you felt when you were trapped outside of the main colony for about a cycle (you accidentally built a wall, trapping yourself in a cave, but instead of breaking it down, you sat there dumbly until you woke up with a sore back and tired eyes). It feels lonely. Empty. You aren't quite sure how, it's not alive. It's not like you've ever been great with machines either, you're much better with plants or critters.

That reminds you, you need to get to work. It's probably nothing anyway. The dreckos need shearing.

The large lizards perk up when you enter, letting you pet them. One of your favorites (you named it Daisy) lumber's up to you and tilts its head. You pet Daisy and begin trimming the soft fibers from the drecko's back. As you're working, you think about what it's like to be a drecko. Do they know they're being cared for? Some of the others might laugh, but you care for these dreckos. They mean so much to you. A bit like how a parent loves their child.

You didn't create them though. Sure, you raised them, but you didn't _make_ them. And, according to the definition of a parent, a parent _makes_ a child. Which, makes you wonder: does a child have to be just like their parent? Because the printing pod is a bit like your parent then, it made you. You push the fibers to the side, inviting another drecko forwards. Your mother?

But a mother is the female parent of something. The printer is the printer. The printer isn't your parent or your mother, but it feels right to think like that. Are you alone thinking this? No one else talks like that, and for a second you feel like another asteroid. Maybe this is all there is.

The drecko you're currently grooming licks its eye with its long tongue and you stroke its head. It purrs and you get back to work.

That night, you pass by the printer again before bed. A bit on purpose. The light atop it shines brightly in the dark, and it's a bit much. As always, it's generating more ooze, humming as it does so. It's thousands of cycles old, 4005 to be exact. It's another one of those things that you just know, no one told you really. Why do you know these things? Were you someone else? The printer is warm to the touch.

Are you someone?

Goodnight mother, you think, and then you call yourself a fool. The printer is the printer. Even if it counts as your parent, your mother, it's not going to respond to you.

Maybe you are getting sick. You've had food poisoning before, and you remember you thought some bizarre things while ill. But then a sudden urge comes over you, and before you can even really process it, you hug one of the legs of the printer's arch. No one saw that, right? You've certainly stayed up too long and you're thinking weird things.

You hurry to bed, and that night, you dream (you dream often, really). This one is different. You're yourself, but not quite. You're different too. Taller, maybe. Different proportions. It's hard to tell, in that fuzzy, dream sort of way.

You're working, somewhere (does that look like the buildings you've found?), and ~~your colleagues~~ your friends are there. Different too, but still achingly familiar and even in your dream you feel some sort of pain.

You're out somewhere (where? There's a lot more plants here, and you can see the _sky_ and it's blue, a color you don't see a lot in the colony), together, and you're laughing and talking about work and life and things you aren't sure how or why you know but you do. It makes you happy too, but in a very different way than when your friend says you've been working hard, or you finish a priority. It's a lot deeper in you, you think. Like a good meal. Have you felt like this before? In a different life it seems. What's it like to be someone else? Is this another colony?

It is cut short all too soon by the colony's alarm. You wake up to wet heat on your face, and it takes you a second to realize you're crying. Are you stressed? Maybe you should see a doctor. It doesn't feel like stress though. You feel sad. Like when one of the older, sweet dreckos passed. It feels a bit like that, except your whole chest aches.

You wipe your eyes and take a deep breath. After breakfast, you pass the printer again, and it's still the printer. You smile.

Good morning, mother.

**Author's Note:**

> the idea of a dupe becoming attached to the printer after the 4001th cycle hurts my mf ing heart


End file.
